


dropping hints

by clairelutra (exosolarmoon)



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Idiots in Love, Mutual Pining, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension, oblivious i d i o t s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 01:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10478859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exosolarmoon/pseuds/clairelutra
Summary: Ladybug asks Chat Noir for boy advice.This goes about as well as expected.





	

Ladybug stared out over the city, chin on her knees and a weight in her heart.

It was a pretty sight — gold-sided buildings glowing in the sunset and the sky all lit up in violet and rose — and Ladybug was trying to get it to distract her from today's failures.

One more failed attempt to talk to Adrien, one more humiliation courtesy of Chloe, one more flunked test and one more talking-to from her parents, and she was starting to wonder why she even tried.

It wasn't often that hopelessness got the better of her, but here she was, sitting on the edge of a roof and thinking about her life.

"Something on your mind, Bugaboo?"

Ladybug jolted out of her reverie, looking up to find Chat plopping down beside her.

"Don't call me Bugaboo," she objected, automatic and without heat, and then sighed and smiled at her partner, happy to see him. "What are you doing out here, anyway?"

"Looking for you," he said, nudging her with a gentle elbow. "Patrol was supposed to start twenty minutes ago, you know."

She winced, feeling 'late' add itself to the long list of Today's Failures, and looked away. "...Sorry."

Chat leaned back on his hands, and she didn't have to look to know he was drilling the side of her head with a concerned stare. "...S'okay. Did something happen?"

"Bad day," Ladybug mumbled into her forearms, then shook herself and put a reassuring smile on her face. "Don't worry about it."

Chat didn't bother to smile back, but did nudge her again, even gentler this time. "It's okay if you don't want to talk about it, but..."

"Yeah," said Ladybug, a grateful, _real_ little smile making her face ache as she leaned into the nudge, relaxing as her head came to rest on his shoulder. "I know. Thank you."

A moment of silence, and then he nosed the top of her head and rested his cheek there.

(She told herself she'd just imagined the hitch in his breath.)

They stayed like that until everything seemed just a little bit more bearable, and then she disentangled herself, sighing and stretching.

"Ready to go?"

She took a moment to let his voice settle into her bones, and then hummed a quiet agreement, ready to face the world once again.

* * *

They were almost done with their route before Ladybug screwed up the courage to speak.

"Hey, Chat..."

He paused before his next jump, shooting her a curious look.

Ladybug chewed her lip. "You've had girlfriends before, right?"

Chat just stared.

...Okay, _granted,_ that hadn't been the best opener. She tried again.

"I mean, of course you have — you probably still do — silly me!" she tittered, and immediately wanted to bury her face in her hands.

"Um," said Chat, doubtlessly wondering if she'd hit her head at some point today.

"I _mean,_ " she tried again, "do you... _how_ do you... I mean... _ugh._ "

Chat set the butt of his staff on the ground and leaned on it like a hiking stick. "...Okay, going back... I mean, I'm _flattered,_ but..." She looked over in time to see him illustrate his point in the air with a gesture, sigh sharply, and ask, "What made you think that I have a girlfriend?"

Ladybug blinked.

Chat blinked back.

"...You mean you don't?"

He shook his head, still looking like he had no idea how she'd come to that conclusion.

Which was patently ridiculous, really — she might not be interested but she had _eyes_ , and _she_ wouldn't know but a lot of people seemed to like the try-hard dork type.

She opened her mouth, inhaled, then started and stopped about three or four times before giving up on putting it gently and just asking, " _How?_ "

Another funny look crossed Chat's face. "What do you mean 'how'?"

"I-I mean," Ladybug spluttered, unaccountably flustered by this revelation. She gestured at him — all of him. "You're _you_. How do you _not_ have a girlfriend?"

It was an array of looks parading across his face this time, and he seemed frozen in his initial pose. "...Um."

"...Do you have a boyfriend?" she tried, a funny mixture of relief and disappointment churning in her gut and not feeling too eager to prod at either emotion.

Chat slowly shook his head.

"No significant other of any kind?"

Another headshake.

"...Oh."

Well.

She hadn't expected that.

She found herself swallowing down sudden butterflies at the information, cheeks tingling slightly — which was _also_ more than a little bit ridiculous, because she hadn't been interested when she thought he had a girlfriend, so why would she be interested now? And he was _just a friend._ An attractive friend maybe, but just a friend.

Chat interrupted her struggle with, "...What were you gonna ask?"

She gave herself a good sound mental kick in the rear and went back to her original point.

"I was going to ask..." Well, she'd been _going_ to ask about the particulars of how to get a date, but...

She rephrased her question. "You're a guy, right?"

...Not that she rephrased it _well_.

She absolutely did not blame him for the long silence and the dry, "...Thanks for noticing."

She actually did bury her face in her hands that time. "I'm just trying to ask what guys notice in girls, okay? Because I've been trying to get my crush to notice me for _ages_ now, and I just... _can't._ "

"...Your crush," Chat echoed flatly.

"My crush," she agreed on a groan. "I can't say _three words_ in front of him without stuttering and..." She gave a despairing little sigh. "He probably thinks I'm an _idiot_ by now."

"... _Well,_ " said Chat.

"You shut up," Ladybug grumbled, scrubbing her cheeks and dropping her hands. "But really..."

She looked over at him hopefully, because Chat almost always had some way to make her day brighter, even when he couldn't help directly, and found him just... _staring_ at her. Again.

"...What?"

He held up a single finger, that strange, strange look still on his face. "Go back a second. You've thought _this whole time_ that I've had a girlfriend."

Ladybug raised her eyebrows. "Yyyyes?"

Chat opened his mouth, then shut it again. "Well, I don't."

"I know."

"I'm single."

Ladybug's stomach flipped a little at the reminder, just to spite her. "...I know? We just talked about that."

He stared at her for a moment longer, and then exhaled an explosive sigh. "Never mind."

Ladybug raised her eyebrows a little higher, but Chat shook his head.

"Anyway, what was the question?" he said, pushing on. "How to get a guy to notice you? Your crush?"

Ladybug let it drop, turning to watch the city twinkle. "Yeah. I mean, I've tried everything from giving him gifts to wearing miniskirts and it just... Nothing seems to _work_."

She glanced over at him just in time to catch him raising his eyes and swallowing.

"Well, if the _miniskirt_ didn't work..." he half-joked, tone just sincere enough to make her tingle pleasantly from head to toe, her thighs warming at the attention.

" _Hush,_ " she said, setting her hand on her hip and absolutely _not_ preening.

He snickered, the noise a little hiccuping and a little raw. "I don't know, I think red spandex is pretty effective."

And _that_ was why she'd been pretty sure he had a girlfriend. How would he have gotten that smooth without practice?

She habitually pushed the thought aside, then snorted. " _That_ would go over well." She struck a pose, miming leaning against a wall. "Hey there, Adrien! Guess what? Your bumbling classmate is actually one of the two people in charge of protecting the entire city! Like my spandex?"

Chat choked at the ridiculous pinup pose she mimed then, and, encouraged, Ladybug went on.

Clapping her hands to her cheeks with exaggerated shock, she stood straight again. " _Wow, Marinette!_ I can't believe you help save the city without running into any walls at all!" She let her expression go flat, squishing her face in frustration. "Yeah, _no._ "

Chat's choke had turned into an all-out coughing fit, and Ladybug leaned over to thump his back. "It's a nice idea though, thanks."

"...'Marinette'?" he echoed, wheezing as soon as he got enough breath back to do so.

Ooooooops.

"Oh, uh, yeah," Ladybug giggled nervously, rubbing the back of her head. "That's my name. Like it?"

He blinked at her once, twice, and then said, "Very pretty."

Ladybug scratched her cheek, bashfully pleased with the praise now sitting warm in her chest.

"...And your crush's name is... Adrien?"

"Aheh." She sighed. "Yep."

"Oh," he said, that funny blank look deepening still further.

"What?"

He made a face like he'd intended to smile but couldn't quite manage it. " _My_ name is Adrien."

It was her turn to say, "Oh."

_Aaaaawkward._

"Funny coincidence?" she suggested, rubbing the back of her head once again. Her ramble must've been _weird_ to listen to.

"...Yeah."

His eyes wandered pointedly in the direction of the nearest Gabriel Inc. ad (and they were _everywhere_ ) and then back to her, and Ladybug sighed again, a little deeper.

"Yeah, it's that Adrien," she said in response to the unasked question. "Look, I _know_ he's super popular and I have a snowman's chance in hell, but..."

"'But'?" Chat prompted.

"He's..." She hesitated, swallowing. "He's kind."

"Kind?"

"And... gentle?" Ladybug found herself unable to even look in Chat's direction as she said it, cheeks burning. "And gentlemanly, and funny, and he has the _cutest laugh_ and... and I know he's popular and pretty and handsome and all that, but he just... seems so lonely?"

She found Chat openly _gaping_ at her, and puffed her cheeks, embarrassed. "I just... want to kiss him until he seems a little less lonely, I guess. And then keep kissing him."

"Oh," said Chat, very, _very_ faintly, and then cleared his throat when she cocked an eyebrow in his direction. "You should... You should do that, then."

Ladybug groaned. "I _would_ if I could just get him to _notice_ me."

"Weeeeell, that might not be so hard," Chat suggested. At her questioning look, he continued with a grin that hedged on sleazy, "You were probably on the right track with the miniskirt."

Ladybug tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, unimpressed.

"I am serious, you know," he added, putting the grin away, and Ladybug was momentarily distracted with batting away the thought of Adrien _noticing_ her in that skirt. Chat rolled his shoulders and stood straight up again. "But really, just... talk to him? If he's really that lonely, I bet he'd appreciate it. Ask him about homework or something."

"And then wear the miniskirt to the study session?" she finished with a dry look, stomach giving a little flip at that thought, too.

Chat made a choking cough noise in the back of his throat and said, "O-only if you want to."

...That was a strange reaction.

Bemused, she said, "...Should I wear it patrol first?"

The coughing noise turned into another full-blown coughing _fit,_ through which she made out a very strangled, " _Um._ "

Ladybug went back to rubbing his back, tucking the reaction into the back of her mind.

"Anyway, we should probably finish up patrol," she said, once the fit had died off and Chat was breathing normally again.

He thumped his chest once more for good measure and smiled down at her. "Lead the way, my lady."

All at once, it struck her how lucky she was for this — what a lucky, _lucky_ bug she was to have him.

She didn't thank him for that nearly enough.

With that in mind, she went up onto her tiptoes and kissed his cheek, leaving her lips warm with the rare, rare feeling of his skin. "Thanks, Chat."

And, with that, she led the way back, determined now more than ever to make him proud and get her boy.

**Author's Note:**

> :D


End file.
